Online File Systems

In any business, there are great ways to set up your electronic files from the beginning that will make your life easier, make the files safer, and easier to access from anywhere. Also referred to as “cloud computing”, the benefits on line file storage include:

Safe electronic storage that is backed up every few seconds. If you do work on a document, and want to go back to an earlier version, you can easily do so. Nothing is permanent and this is a good thing if you make a mistake!

You can access documents and files anywhere in the world. You don’t have to be a slave to your office computer any longer.

You can share documents and the ability to edit them with other users. This becomes quite handy if you eventually hire office staff or even a virtual assistant.

For the most part, it’s free. While there are many great options (some are reviewed HERE), Google or Dropbox are considered the best overall options and easiest to work with.

Here’s one of the best ways you can do it for free (I use this method with Google Drive):

If you don’t have one already, create yourself a gmail account. Using your full name (like Jane.Doe@gmail.com) is the gold standard.

Visit this page or this page to read about setting up Google Drive on your computer, Android and/or iOS devices.

Using pen and paper, make an outline on how you can best set up your file folders that will make the best sense to you.

For the cleaning professional, the following is a great way to set up your file folders as you are getting started. As you proceed and have more complicated business structure (like hiring employees, for example) you can customize it further. This is just a good starting place:

This is a good overall file system you can use, this is exactly how I have my online files for my cleaning company laid out. Obviously if you didn’t start your business until 2018 then you won’t need older file folders this is just mine. The reason I have the top level folder labeled as “1 Clean House Cincinnati” is so that it always appears at the top of my Google Drive.